The electric vehicle, the hybrid vehicle, the fuel cell vehicle, and the like are known as electrically powered vehicles configured to be capable of driving an electric motor for use in driving the vehicle, using electric power stored in a vehicle-mounted power storage device which is typically a secondary battery. For these electrically-powered vehicles, configurations have been proposed for charging a vehicle-mounted power storage device by a power supply that is external to the vehicle (hereinafter the power supply may simply be referred to as “external power supply” and charging of the vehicle-mounted power storage device by the external power supply may simply be referred to as “external charging”).
For example, Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2009-17675 (PTL 1) discloses such an electrically-powered vehicle that can be charged by external charging. This electrically-powered vehicle is connected to an external power supply through a charge plug. A relay is interposed in an electrical path extending to a power storage device from a power feed node electrically connected to the external power supply through the charge plug. A control device operates with electric power from an auxiliary power supply that is provided separately from the above-mentioned power storage device, and controls open and close of the relay depending on the period for which the power storage device is charged. To the power feed node, none of electric-power-consuming components mounted on the electrically-powered vehicle is connected.
Thus, while the electrically-powered vehicle is connected to the external power supply, the standby power in the external power supply for a non-charging period can be made substantially zero (see PTL 1).